Extraction Point
by AutumnEnnui
Summary: Extraction: to pull or take out forcibly. Who's really caught up here?
1. Chapter One: As You Remember It

**Title: Extraction Point**

**Author: AutumnEnnui**

**Chapter One: As You Remember It**

Agent Barton threw his duffel bag on the bed and looked around. It was exactly as he remembered it: gray walls, black doors, simple metal-framed bed with no headboard, scratchy white sheets on an overly firm mattress, and a thick gray blanket folded over the top of the sheets. These were all standard-issue for military barracks, save that these standard-issue items were in a private room when you were one of SHIELD's top agents. Agent Barton knew of four other apartments in this wing of the military complex: Director Fury, along with Agents Hill, Coulson, and Romanoff all shared a living and working space here, though in most cases none of them crossed each other's paths on a regular basis due to scheduling and assignments.

Agent Barton walked over to one of the walls and put his palm flat against the cool surface. "Natasha," he murmured in a curious tone. She slept on the other side of the wall he was touching, in a room identical to his save that Natasha had a rack full of undercover clothing where he had a rack full of bows and a shitload of arrows. Since each of his bows was strung and calibrated for him it didn't make sense to put them in the armory. Plus, he didn't trust anyone with his gear.

He couldn't recall how many nights he'd laid on his bed, fingers interlaced behind his head, listening to the muted sounds of Agent Romanoff getting ready for bed. In those moments, as in most moments, he didn't think of her as Agent Romanoff: it was Natasha, or Nat. Never Tasha, because she said it sounded like the name of a Russian porn star. One night while on a mission in frosty Oslo things had gone to shit fast and they had hidden themselves in a sewer tunnel covered in icy grime. While his teeth chattered slightly and they were close together for warmth she had told him that they were past the point where it made any sense to call each other "Agent Barton" and "Agent Romanoff" all the time.

"It's too formal," she had remarked, "Natasha. Or Nat. Sometimes even Natasha sounds too formal."

Since it had been more words from her at one time than he was used to he had just nodded his head and willed his body to get warm, but he didn't forget what she said. So when people were around she was Agent Romanoff or Black Widow and he was Agent Barton or Hawkeye , but when there were no other eyes or ears around she was Nat and he was Clint. He had grown attached to her name, and to his dismay he had grown attached to her as well. Attachment, as it was well-known, is never a good thing for agents. Clint knew this, but it had happened anyway so it was on his shoulders to play that hand as close to his chest as possible.

She didn't know. Agent Barton had taken great care to make sure she never found out. Partnerships were about loyalty and respect, of course, but they were also about knowing that your partner won't flinch and will keep to the mission no matter the cost. At this point he considered it apt to say that he was compromised. He trusted Natasha implicitly, respected her immensely, knew she would never flinch, and was sure she would always keep to the mission. What he couldn't account for, though, was himself. That was why he had left for three months after New York: he needed to clear his head. But for all his running and hiding he had gotten nowhere. He just kept butting his head against the same stubborn brick wall he knew to just be himself. He had fallen in love with the one person he never should have and he was scared that someday she would find out. He didn't know what that would mean, for either of them.

He stripped everything off the bed and threw it all into a corner. He replaced the scratchy white sheets with soft white cotton ones, and replaced the gray blanket with a thick blue one. He hated pillows. They always made his head sweat and came in too handy in matters of smothering. Keeping it simple was the Clint Barton way; well, the majority of the time at any rate. Clothing went into drawers or in the small closet, toiletries were placed in the small bathroom, and three pictures in frames were places on top of the chest of drawers: A shot of the Chain Bridge across the Danube in Budapest at night, a glassy lake as seen from his cabin in the Adirondacks in the fall, and a snow-white unnamed beach near Goa. No personal pictures: it was never a good idea. But Clint had found a work-around by taking pictures of places that reminded him of what was personal to him.

It had been a bemused quip that had come from him in New York when he had told Natasha that he remembered Budapest differently than she did, but the assertion did have a ring of truth to it. There had been violence, guns, injuries, seemingly improbable odds, and more; but what he remembered so differently was sitting on top of a beautiful, tree-covered hill, looking down at the Chain Bridge waiting for an illegal arms drop to happen. Natasha had the binoculars and was lying on her stomach when a young couple stopped in the middle of the bridge. Both agents tensed, but then the man and woman embraced one another before moving on. Clint looked down at Natasha and she looked up at him with those eyes.

"You ever have that?" she asked him, seeming genuinely curious.

He shook his head. "Never part of the plan."

The moonlight caught one side of her face and illuminated briefly her red hair, changing it to a deep auburn.

"It was never an option," she said as her eyes turned back to the task at hand.

Clint had gone back several months later to the same spot, under the same weather conditions, and had taken this snapshot. It was something he wished for her someday.

The picture of the glassy lake was new. When he had taken his three months off to collect his thoughts he had retreated to his cabin. For weeks all he did was sit on his large wooden chair on the porch, watching the leaves turn as he contemplated his present and future: the green drained out, then there was yellow giving way to orange and red and burgundy until finally the brown leaf fell to the ground, providing the brown base for the white covering that would soon follow. There was one red leaf that had fallen serendipitously onto his chair one morning before he sat down. He picked it up and stared at it for at least twenty minutes before putting it down beside him. It was the shade of her hair.

The beach in Goa. Now, that one was a mistake. It was a reminder of what not to let out, and why you don't ask the personal questions. Personal items, tidbits, talents, feelings – those were things one volunteers. You don't ask. You may not like the answer. People have been killed for less.

It had been one long swim to shore, but they knew SHIELD had already picked up their signal and would be on their way to extract them. Clint made conversation as Natasha combed her hair with her fingers.

"Say this wasn't a mission and we were most definitely stranded on a desert island: what five things would you want with you?"

Natasha looked at him like he was crazy, which was a look he was well-used to by then. He decided to go first.

"My wooden bow, a knife, a flint, a sewing kit, and someone to talk to."

Natasha scoffed, "Why someone to talk to? You'd be responsible for someone else when you'd be pushing to keep yourself alive. Why risk that? Why be selfish enough to bring another life into your mess? Why add more debt to the account?"

Clint didn't know what he expected her to say, but what she did say knocked sense into him. Of course someone who thought so deeply every day about all the hurt she had caused while under someone else's control would never entertain knowingly dragging someone into a mess that might possibly add even more guilt and shame to her internal resume. Even more than this hit Clint deeper: Natasha thought less of him for entertaining this selfish idea. That stung but he knew he deserved it. Espionage, intrigue, sabotage, politics, war – these were all things that their minds and bodies had been trained for. Idle thoughts, idle hands… those weren't part of the picture and they showed your mind was somewhere else. Clint's mind was on her. A normal person might compare it to walking the high-wire, this balancing act of caring for the welfare of your partner but not caring for them as an individual important to your life, but since he could walk a high wire like it was sidewalk he didn't consider it an apt metaphor. Actually, he didn't think there could be an apt metaphor for how this balance needed to work inside of his mind.

Clint walked over to the small computer embedded in the wall next to his door. A few quick clicks told him Agent Natasha Romanoff wasn't on the premises: she was out on mission. It was both a relief and not: he wanted to see her, but he also wanted to get his bearings again before confronted with the idea of seeing her again. Especially when he knew they'd more than likely be thrown right back into mission work together.

He walked out the door and toward the actual headquarters of the SHIELD base, a square, three-story building that had about six other floor hidden beneath the surface. Some areas he knew intimately, others not at all. Right now he sought his boss, looking for orders or just work until orders came in.

"Agent Barton. Welcome back," Director Fury greeted him tersely even as Agent Hill brushed past him and out the door.

"Hill trouble?" Barton asked as he tossed a curious look over his shoulder. He knew the non-committal stare was what he would get, so it didn't surprise him when it occurred.

"What can I do for you, Agent Barton?" Fury asked as he reviewed some security data on a large screen. Color video provided images of Captain America beating down a large group of violent men. Clint didn't pay too much attention to it, since he knew Steve would come out on top.

"I'm awaiting orders, Sir."

Fury rolled his eye at the agent before him: "You just got back and now you want back out? Not even going to take the time to settle in?"

"Settling isn't my style, Sir. Never has been."

"Didn't think so. That's all right. I have a mission for you anyway, hot off the press." Fury tossed Clint a dossier.

Clint opened the folder and looked at the top page before staring at his boss, a little lost for words.

"Yeah, I know. It's rare as hell, but our Black Widow seems to have been caught. Go get her out, would you?"


	2. Chapter Two: No Matter the Cost

Title: Extraction Point

Author: AutumnEnnui

Chapter Two: No Matter the Cost

Natasha wondered if all men really did hit the same, because it seemed no matter how many times a man backhanded her across her face it always just felt like she'd been there and done that. There was the crack of their hand on her face, usually splitting her lip, sometimes just whacking the shit out of her cheekbone. Once some dumbass thug had tried to backhand her and caught her temple for some weird reason. She kicked him in the balls. And here she was, in a very similar situation to all those others, save that she wasn't going to kick her way out of this one.

Usually she wasn't dumb enough to fall for taking a drink from anyone, and she was extremely keen at detecting poisons and toxins in food or drinks. Also, she had a high tolerance for anything that might impair her… abilities in any way. Something she didn't count on when she went on this mission, though, was ventilation: more specifically, ventilation systems. The club had been busy, smoke had filled the air, the music was as loud as a club usually is; so when the air around her became peppered with a very lightly-fragranced concoction that she had concluded had impaired her better judgment, she didn't think twice when the bartender offered her a colorful cocktail. Of course, at that point she was impaired enough to drink the whole, chemical-laden thing.

_That's how you end up dead, Natasha_, she thought to herself. She could only thank goodness she wasn't fucking dead: although at the rate they were hitting her she didn't know exactly how long that state of being would last. They'd get frustrated with the fact that she wasn't giving up any information from hitting, and then they'd simply move on to bigger and more horrific torture methods. And since she was trained for this, since she had survived all this and more in the past, she knew she wouldn't give anything up. Surrender wasn't in her vocabulary.

She did wonder how long the extraction team would take. She wondered who they'd send. Not Coulson, because he was still on leave. Not Hill, because that woman rarely left Fury's side. Sure as shit wouldn't be Clint, because no one had heard from him or seen him in three months or so.

"Agent Romanov, this will just go easier if you tell us where you hid the drive."

Natasha sighed and looked at the large minion in front of her. She wished that the boss men would stop sending out thugs to do an assassin's job. "Then you'll just have to make it harder, because I'm sure as shit not telling you where that drive is."

Another backhand. Another blade drawn across her bared thigh. More blood. It would get worse before it got better, she was sure of it.

She fucking hated the sturdy, single-piece metal chair that was bolted heavily to the concrete floor. She also hated the black leather restraints that were padded with tire rubber, tightened down enough to hurt and no amount of sweat would allow her to slip out of them. She hated that they knew her skill level enough to put a metal collar that was attached to the chair around her neck – no head-butting for her. Ankles? Locked down like her wrists. There was even a belt restraint around her waist. She had woken up like this! No fucking wiggle room. She found it unacceptable enough that she decided that there would need to be more intensive training on escape methods, poison and toxin detection, and resistance… just as soon as she got out of this mess… if she got out of this mess. It wasn't looking too good, but she knew that she had missed her check-in with SHIELD twice by now, so someone was on the way. Whether they could find her or not (since her captors had cut out the tracking device behind her right ear) was a different story.

What she hated more than all of that was this fucking feeling of being a damsel in distress. She was really and truly stuck. She might as well be shouting, "Save me! Save me!" for all the good it would do her at this point.

"Let's bleed her out some," the minion remarked, "weaken her before we break out the waterboarding shit."

Sharp knives on her bare thighs. Slice after slice after slice. At least the assholes knew how to avoid her femoral artery. She wouldn't last long enough for waterboarding should they open that fucker. She kind of wished she could move enough to make them accidentally do it, but that was a fruitless endeavor if there ever was one. One of the men ripped the few buttons she had on her blouse off, exposing her chest.

"Just for fun," he sneered before using his knife to carve a line straight down her sternum and around her breasts. Superficial cuts that would bleed but not drain her, but awful in their own way because she knew they would leave scars. If she got out of this intact she was surely going to need some plastic surgery to give her skin a clean slate once more.

She hated down time, and she didn't appreciate being left to stew and bleed in a cold room while her captors contemplated waterboarding her. She could resist it, sure, but it wasn't exactly her idea of fun. Going to a so-called "happy-place", or trying to find some sense of zen while shivering and bleeding wasn't likely, but Natasha had her thoughts, feelings, and wishes. She didn't like anyone to know that, but she did. She was a human being, no matter what had been done to her in the past, and the more she moved away from that past and toward clearing the ledger she considered her greatest cross to bear the more she felt human, and the more she felt like she had permission to want things for herself.

Just like everyone else, she had felt like a vacation after New York was in order. She only took two weeks because the idleness killed her, but she took the time to go to the coast of Northern California, where she rented a seaside cottage under an alias. For two weeks she sat on the porch, on the beach, on the rocks, and on random trees in the deep redwood forests not far from the coastline. She thought about aliens, magic, gods, newfound alliances, new trainings awaiting her, her past, her present, and Clint.

She knew she wasn't fooling anyone anymore: from the call she got from Coulson telling her the news of Clint becoming compromised it was evident as hell that only half of her mind was on stopping Loki: the other half was solidly on getting her partner back no matter the cost. A personal factor had settled in, almost a personal panicked mission to save Clint before he was completely lost. But it wasn't the fear of losing her partner, or of losing one of SHIELD's essential and top agents that panicked her: it was losing him. Only him. Losing his smile, his laugh, his serious and weighted attitude toward the most daunting of missions, the goofiness he only displayed in front of her during late night training sessions or rare down time – she didn't want to lose Clint Barton. He wasn't only her partner: he was the solid rock that always had her back, patched her wounds, held her down when the night terrors came and threatened to consume her, gave her a reason to laugh when things got rough, and so much more. She would be lying if she said that she only saw him as a friend. She didn't know what to make of any of it anymore. And now… well, she'd be lucky if she got a chance to work it all out inside of her head, especially as she watched her blood snake a trail to the drain in the cement floor.

He didn't know. Agent Romanov was trying to make sure he wouldn't find out until she knew for sure what she was feeling and what she wanted to do about it. Losing him as a partner was not an option, but she had no clue how Director Fury would take it, or think about it. Partnerships were about loyalty, respect, trust, watching each other's backs, caring for each other's general welfare, and knowing that your partner won't flinch and will keep to the mission no matter the cost. She hadn't been kidding when she told Clint she was compromised after he started to come to his senses in a sick room inside the helicarrier. She knew there was mutual trust and respect between them, but whatever else she was feeling was what she was unsure of. Her feelings were skewed now, even biased, but as she sat on the beach watching ten-foot swells on the shoreline she worked out that she would still always stick to her core belief that their missions were of the utmost importance, and that it would be doing Clint an injustice as her partner to think that saving the world was even one centimeter less important than saving him simply because she had feelings for him.

Natasha wondered how long those foot soldiers were going to be gone. If they didn't show up again soon she might pass out, because even someone as well-trained as her can't function without a decent amount of blood in her system.

The Black Widow had been surprised when Hawkeye hadn't come back to join her in their work after the month everyone else took off. He had done a damn good job hiding, too. They all had tracking chips, but they had to be accessed. That was a level of access she didn't possess. She tried every alias she knew of, and nothing. When they hit the two-month mark she started to wonder if something had gone wrong. To distract herself from this curiosity, she had taken this undercover mission. A fat lot of good it did her, considering her vision was starting to get blurry, it had become too hard to keep her head up, and she was slump down enough that the metal collar on the chair was leaving a nice indent in her skin.

Natasha heard commotion outside, although it sounded very far away. Everything sounded far away, and she only had time enough to see a familiar figure dressed all in black force the door open and rush toward her before things started to go completely dark.

"'Bout time," was the only thing she could get out before everything was black.


	3. Chapter 3: Reason Within Relevation

Title: Extraction Point

Author: AutumnEnnui

Chapter Three: Reason Within Relevation

One thing was for damn sure: he hated waiting to see if Natasha was going to make it through surgery after being tortured by those assholes. As he sat in a hard, plastic chair on one side of the room in the bases' medical facility he could fully admit that his fears that she wouldn't make it were largely bullshit: Natasha's childhood training, programming, and modifications allowed for an accelerated healing time that impressed just about everyone. But still… there had been a shitload of blood: on the ugly tile floor, on the heavily-fortified chair, on her ripped clothing, on her skin. He remembered with a shiver the way the blood ran down her legs until it spread out when it hit the tops of her small feet. Being of eastern European descent meant fair skin, but the shade of pale she was when he had first seen her seemed ghostly. He didn't like the think about it much, but he had nothing else to do until she woke up and inevitably told him he looked like hell. He sure as hell felt like it.

She had regained most of her color, even if she was still sedated so her body could do its healing with no interruptions from someone as stubborn as Natasha. She was clever enough to charm some doctor right out of the hospital. They all knew that. So sedation was the vote and the action. He knew she would be pissed about that when she woke up, along with just about everything else that had gone wrong. The person she was going to be most pissed at, besides herself, was him.

Clint ran his hand though his dirty hair and sighed as he rolled his head back onto the chair. It hadn't been hard to overwhelm the second-rate gangster squad and surprise the underwhelming boss. Toxicity screening done on Natasha showed trace amounts of various concoctions, though they were still processing all the components. It was almost like the boss knew what he was doing and had the funds but hadn't been able to pull off the mission as he intended. It all smelled of trap, and Clint wondered who it had been truly set for. He also wondered how Natasha had become such easy prey. Natasha Romanoff may be numerous things, but gullible and off-guard wasn't anything like her.

It had been three days since the extraction. Clint was still trying to work out and process everything that happened and how it had made him feel. He felt almost ashamed for panicking and storming through the enemy's complex in order to find Natasha. He felt even more ashamed when he realized that he was more afraid of losing her than of taking down that crew. She was going to find out. It was inevitable. The statements had been taken, the reports had been filed. Clint didn't know what was going to come of it when Director Fury finally made a decision, but what he feared more was what Natasha was going to think of him. It may be the end of their partnership. It may be the end of their friendship. He could have risked the lives of all agents under his command. He had been reckless: he didn't even bother to check to see if the room was clear before make a bee-line to the woman he loved. Both of their lives could have ended right then and there but he hadn't given it a second thought.

Fucking hell.

Clint stood abruptly and walked over to the window.

Fucking hell.

It was another two days before they weaned Natasha off the sedation, though no one had gotten around to warning Clint before he walked right into a sticky web of confrontation. A strong hand caught his upper arm and swung him into the wall just before a bare foot kicked the door closed. He was confronted by those large green eyes, sharpened into slits, and lips pressed tight with anger.

"This," Natasha growled, "is all your fucking fault, Barton."

Clint cleared his throat and reminded himself that he was backed into a corner by some primal, visceral version of the Black Widow. She wasn't amused. She wasn't concentrating. Her stance said she was ready to fight. She was grim and angry, and it was all directed straight at him. He knew he deserved every amount of it.

After a deep breath, Hawkeye responded as calmly as he could manage with one of her hands suddenly around his throat and the other holding his arm behind his back and against the wall. He was hurting, sure, but cooling this situation was much more important than his comfort.

"Nat, I don't know how I caused your mission to go haywire…" The hand on his throat tightened.

Her stare bore into him, pressing for answers he didn't have.

"I was distracted. I don't know how or when or why you …," Natasha started to pant and shake. Clint knew then that the sedation hadn't completely worn off, but as long as she felt more secure holding him there he didn't dare move. Plus, she might be even deadlier right now than usual because she didn't have complete control of herself.

"You … and I didn't even bother to do all the research I should have because … I wanted … to stop…," her voice started to grow weaker, and her grip on his throat started to slacken, "I just wanted… I wanted to stop."

Natasha started to sag, and her eyes fluttered. Clint scooped her up, and she didn't protest. He put her down on the bed as carefully as he could and pulled the sheets up over her. Her eyes were dazed as she looked at him.

Clint knew this wouldn't be the first or only time she would attempt to blame him and grill him for what had happened. Why she blamed him for the mission, he still didn't know. Her fragmented sentences had only barely made sense. He didn't even know if she would remember what she had just done and what she had just said.

"You need to go," Natasha said suddenly, her voice quiet but clear.

"Why?"

"I need to think. Clint … I need you to go. There are reasons. I can't tell you now. But please …"

Clint nodded briefly before turning on his heel and leaving the room. There were a thousand questions running through his brain, none of them with answers to match. He was tired, he was angry, and he knew he was fucked in so many ways. He made his way back to his barracks, back to someplace he could lock the door and maybe think of what he could do to salvage this. He didn't want to lose her, in any way, but he didn't truly know how he was going to keep her, either.

Clint awoke with a start somewhere about 0300 hours, shaking, panting, and covered in sweat. He flung the covers off his body, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and buried his face in his hands. Natasha had been in his dream, both dripping and clotted red from head to toe as she stood on the frozen lake he knew to be outside his cabin in the mountains. Her voice was heavy with exhaustion, and tinged with blame. Him. He was to blame.

_It's your fault, _she said.

_I have my reasons, _she said.

_You lost, Barton, _she said.

_It was never an option, _she said.

She shook her head. Deep red leaves began to fall, like a rainstorm. She was gone. All Clint was left with was the red leaf in his hand and a lake covered in blood.

Clint shook his head, tried to clear out the cobwebs.

"Just a dream, huh," he said to the empty room. "Some dream."

He pulled on workout pants and a tank top, knowing that sleep wasn't going to happen right now. He grabbed a bow and quiver. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well try to focus on something other than the girl that was going to get away.

Dawn came, and Clint stepped into the common area to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge. Of all the people in all the world, he didn't expect Agent Hill to be sitting in a chair, looking as if she had been waiting for him.

"Good morning, Agent Hill," Clint said politely to the stern woman. She was beautiful, but she was every inch a dedicated agent. She was also direct: she didn't pull punches, didn't spare feelings, and never followed orders blindly. She and Clint tolerated each other but respected one another's talents. They weren't close, but they were civil to one another.

"I have work to do, so I'll make this short," she said as she uncrossed her legs. "Agent Romanoff disappeared from the med center three hours ago. She took nothing, and no one even saw her leave, though that's not beyond her capabilities even in an infirmed state."

Clint was hardly shocked, and he kept his face neutral. "There were no clues?"

Agent Hill shook her head and then leveled her gaze with Agent Barton.

"You didn't come back when she did. She was only gone the month," she remarked, somewhat accusingly.

"I needed time to think."

"I know that I come across as arrogant and often tactless," Hill said as she stood up and folded her arms in front of her, "but I'm not stupid."

"No one accused you of being stupid, Agent Hill," Clint countered, "But I have to ask why you're taking the time to tell me this? Shouldn't you be looking for Agent Romanoff?"

"I saw how she was when she came back after Coulson told her that you'd been compromised," Hill explained, her tone level. "You were all she thought about, and she didn't do a good job of hiding it. She kept insisting we might be running out of time, but she was also positive you were still alive. There was hope there, Agent Barton, and almost wishing. I saw the same thing when she came back and you didn't – wishing. Looking out of windows. Scanning computers. Looking at file after file. Asking question after question. She tried to hide it, and she almost did. Director Fury didn't notice, but I did. Maybe it's woman's intuition, or maybe I'm just really perceptive. I don't know; but at the two month mark it changed and the wishing was replaced by distress."

Clint took a drink and sat down, absorbing what his fellow agent was telling him. This was information he didn't have: who Agent Romanoff was when he was gone. Natasha without him. Natasha that took an improperly-researched mission for reasons he was only starting to piece together with the help of Agent Hill.

"If you ask me," Hill said as she moved toward the door, "she looked like a woman in love."

Clint stood and clenched his fists in fear. "What will you tell Fury?"

Agent Hill surprised him with her response, delivered with a shake of her head.

"Nothing. Your affairs are yours to handle. Both of you do your jobs, I'll do mine, and unless that changes it's no one else's business."

Clint watched the tall woman walk out the door, his mind reeling. What if Hill was right? Did Natasha, for all her claims of love being selfish, of love being something that was not an option for her, of love being something only children engage in… was she in love with him? Had she been so distracted by his whereabouts and whether or not he was coming back that she didn't think her mission all the way through?

Did he now owe her a debt?

Where had she gone?


End file.
